Tag: resumes

Boring, Bland Resumes: 3 Simple Ways To Stand Out

Published 2021/07/24

Boring, Bland Resumes: 3 Simple Ways To Stand Out

Resumes are one of the worst inventions ever.

Not only do you have to look up what special keyboard keys are needed if you want to type the word resumé correctly (stupid accented é!) but there is also that tiny little detail of boiling down who you are as a professional and a person into one or two pages of formatted text.

Ugh.

Could we have come up with a worse system to try and fill a job?

Even online dating profiles are (just barely) better than this. At least there the goal is to sell yourself as a person.

With resumes, you aren’t supposed to include fun pictures of you and your dog, your likes and dislikes, or really much of anything personal.

Stop Using Me As A Reference On Your Resume

Published 2021/07/13

Stop Using Me As A Reference On Your Resume

Boom! Right smack dab in the middle of my day I get a fresh, unsolicited email dropped into the middle of my inbox. Dear Kevin, So-and-so listed you as a reference and I wanted to reach out and ask you some questions. Can you please provide detailed responses to the following 12 questions about this person for me please? Thanks,Corporate Recruiter Wow. Yeah, that is just what I needed. More work to do today. Hey, so-and-so. Why don’t you just take me off your references list as I don’t have time for that. Whew – deep breath. Let me start over. Having ranted and raved about the whole resume process and how awful it is many times previously, the act of putting references on a resume and then in the recruiter following up and reaching out to said references is just the cherry on top of a putrid pie. However,…

Published 2019/10/20

First Resumes

Co-Ops, interns, fresh-from-bootcamp developers lend me your keyboards…. I have been very fortunate in being able to build a co-op program in conjunction with the engineering program at a local university. Both in targeting hiring entry level developers and during the time that this program has been running I have had the great (mis)fortune to read hundreds of entry-level resumes. Through the reading of so many resumes I would like to give some direct feedback to new and entry level people. First of all try and remember this: resumes suck. There is no getting around it. This will be a common theme from me on this blog. The main reason I don’t like resumes is very simple. How old are you while reading this? You may be in your early 20s. Let’s say that today is your birthday and that you are turning 20. You have now lived 7,300 days…